External Harddisk detected, but does not appear in explorer

I have purchased a hard disk case ("gate" GXM-25SU Case-kit), have inserted my old hard-disk to it, and connected it to my USB port. The device has been detected, the disk is turning, and it appears in the device manager.

The enclosed drivers are for Win 98 only, I am running XP - however is the driver installed as it appears in the device manager?

But the drive doesn't show up in the explorer / my computer / file manager. How can I solve this issue ?

What happens if you connect the drive AFTER you have booted? Should it not install some USB-driver?
Did you install the USB-drivers from the mobo-CD? If you have a VIA chipset, did you try the all-in-1 drivers?
Did you try through Disk Management?

Thanks for your quick reply, I am just a bit overloaded by your long list of proposals...
It does detect "new hardware" - but it doesn't explicitly say it installs driver.
Also, it does not appear in the list to "disconnect hardware savely"
I didn't install any driver actively - what is a mobo-CD?
What is a VIA chipset?
What are all-in-1 drivers?
What is Disk Management?

I am curently having the same problem with a USB 2.0 data stick. Windows XP registers that it is there and displays the "Eject Hardwaare" icon on the taskbar, however there is nothing in explorer.

I have had some sucess by going to Computer management. This is only avaialbe in windows 2k and XP. It can be accessed through the "administrative tools" section of control panel. If you cant find it here go to START and run. Tpye "mmc" for microsoft management console. You have to go "Console" then "Add/Remove Snapin". If you add the "Removable Storage Management" snapin you get what you need.

In removable storage go to physical locations and then delete your drive, making sure that it is not connected at the time. Close the management tool, hopefully when you put your USB device(external HD) back into the USB port it shall recreate everything and all will be working. I know this has worked for me a few times, and it is not very difficult to do.

Actually, it does not appear in the list displayed with the "Eject Hardwaare" icon. The only place where it does show is in the hardware list under the "hardware" menue in the control panel.
It is also not listed under the "Add/Remove Snapin"

Dom, this is a know problem in windows XP and it is due to <windows explorer's> handling of giving letters to each volume - it does not recognise networks as volumes, so if you have some kind of network on your system you have to free up some letters after your last permanent HDD or disk drives. Here is a better explanation from http://www.universalsmartdrive.net/standard/troubleshooting.htm

Symptoms - When you have mapped network drives and you try to use a newly installed Removable Storage device, the drive that relates to this device does not appear in Windows Explorer. However, it does appear under Computer Management (Local)>Storage>Disk Management.

NOTE: This also occurs when you add a physical hard drive or CD ROM to the system when a persistent mapped network drive is setup for the user logging onto the system.

Cause - This behavior can occur if you map a network drive to the next available drive letter after the local volumes and cd rom drives have been assigned drive letters. When the new removable device is added, Mount Manager, which assigns drive letters to volumes, does not recognize the mapped network drive and assigns the next available drive letter to the removable device, thus causing a collision with the existing mapped drive.

Resolution - To resolve this behavior, specify a different drive letter for the Removable Device:

1. Click Start on the taskbar, then right-click My Computer on the desktop or from the Start menu, and then click Manage.
2. Under Computer Management, click Disk Management.
3. In the list of drives in the right pane, right-click the Removable Device and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4. Click Change, and in the drop-down box, specify a drive letter for the Removable Device, choosing one that is not assigned to the mapped network drives.
5. Click OK, and then click OK again.

This change automatically updates Windows Explorer, which now shows both the mapped network drives and the recently installed Removable Device. Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Hi LRD, your message above was very clear and has really helped my problem. I got the same problem as DOM (could not see external HD) and used your information to initialise the drive, number it etc. So thanks a lot. Cheers, Blackspot

I know someone said their disk was partitioned, but humor me, because this is classic behavior for an uninitialized disk. Open Disk Manager and see if it says "Not Initialized." If so you need to initialize, partition, and format it.

I'd write detailed instructions, but I already did once and my login timed out, destroying my huge post, so I'm a little tired. If you need more help to do the above, Google it or reply or PM to me.

Foreign/Dynamic disks are not supported on Windows XP Home Edition or on portable computers. Has your disk been on an XP Pro machine and you are trying to read it from an XP Home machine? If not, you can right click on the device and "Import Foreign Disk".